Unless otherwise indicated herein, the description in this section is not prior art to the claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
There have been requests for reducing activation time of an electronic device, which includes an information processing device such as a personal computer and an image forming apparatus such as a digital multi-functional peripheral, for reducing stress to a user, or any other reason.
A read of firmware from a read only memory (ROM) or any other operation is performed during activation of the electronic device. Therefore, an increase in speed of reading firmware is expected to contribute to a reduction in the activation time.
The speed of reading firmware can be increased in a relatively simple manner in terms of hardware. In other words, while firmware is generally stored in a non-volatile flash memory, storing in a solid state drive (SSD) instead of the flash memory can increase the speed of reading. The SSD ensures the increased speed of reading by simultaneous access to a plurality of flash memories.
Meanwhile, the SSD causes a problem that a file system is subject to be damaged due to power shutdown with the electronic device in operation, or any other incident.
Thus, the firmware cannot be read due to the damage of the file system on the SSD when storing the firmware in the SSD. Accordingly, activation of the electronic device may not be able to be performed.
When replacing an SSD, an unused SSD before storing firmware is mounted on the electronic device. Accordingly, due to the absence of the firmware in the SSD, the activation of the electronic device cannot be performed similarly to the case of the damaged file system.
In response to this situation, for example, a technique to store a master program and a backup program of the firmware in advance, activate the electronic device with one of the master program and the backup program, and recover the other damaged has been proposed.